The Sentiment Of Sherlock Holmes
by AlphaTango
Summary: In which John Watson and Sherlock Holmes struggle desperately to become what they've always been. Post-Reichenbach, Johnlock.
1. Chapter 1

_**The Sentiment of Sherlock Holmes**_

"I know it's probably redundant, or...or something, but I figured I should just-" She fiddled awkwardly with the ring on her finger, careful not to look into John's eyes the wrong way. "How are you, John?" She finally asked, face lifting to John's in a bruised and shy "Molly" kind of way.

At her insistence, they met like this once a month. Or, rather, _had been_ meeting like this once a month since Sherlock-

-since it happened eight months ago.

"I'm fine, Molly. Things are-" He tried to say, clearing his throat and offering her a weak smile where words would definitely fail. "It's all fine."

_"It's all fine." _He remembered, wincing as the memory flashed quick and unapologetic.

And then a resulting surge of anger pulsed, because none of his words or actions these days seemed to be able to stand on their own without parading their innuendos of Sherlock Holmes whenever the opportunity arose. John felt the napkin in his right hand tearing to shreds under the sedated anger that slept like a beast in a cage, and manifested itself as a tight-lipped, desperate need for his world to be totally and completely stripped of anything that was ever Sherlock Holmes.

These meetings with Molly, good-intentioned as they were, would have been titled "A Study in Patience" if he still wrote the blogs.

"Oh. Right, of course." Molly replied through a breathy non-laugh, and John offered her another stupid smile that did nothing to quell the sand-storm in his brain. "It's all...fine." She replied, re-affirming it back to him.

_"It's all fine. It's allllllll fine. You just can't leave well enough alone, can you, Sherlock? Never could. If you were so keen on erasing every thing, absolutely __**everything**__, then-" _And like so many times before, John felt himself plummeting into the hell-hole of diatribes he would never be able to say at Sherlock.

"John, I'll be honest for a second, so just...well, sometimes I just wonder if you're as-"

_"-just take it all with you. I don't __**want **__to remember things. I don't __**want **__to speak your language and step around your shadows. I don't want you to linger here, Sherlock, so just fucking __**leave **__before I-"_

"-okay as you say you are. He wouldn't want you to - well, none of us want you to be like this, but he especially wouldn't w-"

_"You've left me with a clusterfuck of questions to sort through, and these don't have answers, Sherlock. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I know you were never fair, but this is- no, sod this. **Sod **this. There's no point __to this, so please leave. Just-"_

"-which is why I think you should start seeing your therapist again-"

_"-you did this on purpose, didn't you? 'A Study in Cruelty', is that what you want me to title the blog post? I don't write those anymore, you prat. I don't do **anything** anymore. Christ__**,**__ Sherlock, __**Christ**__."_

"-and I know what it means to look sad when you...when you think no one can see, but it's-"

"I am sad."

It's a full-stop, and John swears he can hear the coursing flood waters as he breaks one of the rafters of his eternal character. "Rock-Solid" John Watson, concrete and omnipresent and hard as calcium and diamond, is not above admitting where he falls short these days.

Partly because he knows no one would believe him even if he did, but mostly because he isn't John Watson anymore.

He hasn't been for a while, and the monthly visits from Molly and the calls from Lestrade and the inquiries from Mrs. Hudson tell John that every one can tell as well. The texts from Mycroft continue steadily, but John can't tolerate the thought of responding.

"Sorry...what?" Molly asked, cutting her monologue in half, despite having rehearsed it to herself at least five times on the way there. (That was a deduction, and fuck you, Sherlock.)

"I am sad, Molly. And angry. Very, very angry."

"He wouldn't want that, John." She says, and flinches as John slams his fork on the plate.

"_HE_ doesn't get a say anymore." John barks, and instantly recoils as Molly's mouth snaps shut and the people walking past quiet at the outburst. "Christ, Molly. I'm sorry." He offers, anger flaring at the idiocy of such a statement; because Sherlock, even in death, still gets more of a say in John's life than anyone else.

"No, it's quite alright John. I shouldn't be saying these things to you." She explains with a faint veil of frustration under her voice. From where, he doesn't know, but every one is frustrated. And sad. And blind-sided. And trying to navigate through the damage, so he doesn't dwell on it.

He pushes the food around on his plate non-commitally as the conversation dissolves into thin air. Molly is observing him -he hates that word, by the way- but most people are these days, so he doesn't question her theories. He's done with theories, anyway- and deductions, and blog posts, and chemistry and conclusions. He's done with crime scenes and corpses and experiments and purpose. He's done with violins and dressing gowns and gunshots and breathing.

He's done with Sherlock Holmes, he's done with himself, he's done with that life.

He's done.

And he wishes, more than anything, that every one else would allow him to be.

"You're really not okay." Molly's tender accusation replaces the clinking of silverware, and John isn't surprised when she finally holds a heart-breaking eye contact. "...are you."

"No." He runs a hand though his dishwater-blonde hair and glances to the right. "And I doubt I ever will be." He says, sad and resolute, because every one knows. And it's a bit not good, but there are so, so many things that stopped being good the second Sherlock Holmes killed himself.

John being one of them.

She reaches across the table and grabs one of his hands.

"John, he really...you were important to him. More important than anyone, I think. Any_thing_, actually." She explains, though the clumsy insecurity has been replaced by an assertiveness uncharacteristic of Molly. Like she _believes _what she's saying is absolute fact, but how could she be sure when John isn't sure of **_anything_** at all?

"Yeah." John offers flatly, because this is when words become forbidden territory, and he's dangerously close to crumbling into a trillion pieces anyway. He can't do sentiment. Not now, not ever again, not even if it's proven true.

He doesn't want to hear about the sentiment of Sherlock Holmes for the rest of his natural life. As far as he's concerned, everything that he ever solidified as fact between Sherlock and himself will stay suspended in purgatory. Indefinitely.

...and when he thinks too hard about that, he finds himself hunched over the toilet at three in the morning, purging himself of everything that doesn't matter.

"I have to go, Molly. It's been lovely." He says, both rising from their chairs in sync. Molly grabs her jacket and huddles it to her stomach, not failing to look like a wounded animal, and John does feel bad. Really, he does.

"If you need anything, John, just...let me know?" She asks, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"Of course." He leans in and kisses her cheek, and she nods once, knowing that John will never make the mistake of needing anything again.

John glances back towards her and sends her a smile as she waves, small and unsure, after his retreating figure is lost in a technicolor of people. Smile dropping, she pulls out her phone, begins walking in the opposite direction, and sends a single text message to an unknown recipient:

_"A bit not good. -Molly"_

**(One Hour Later)**

"I know you are prone to ignoring these, but I really do need to speak with you John. It's quite urgent. -MH"

John briefly glanced at the text message before sliding his phone back on the table. It was all of three minutes before the hateful buzzing resounded through the largely empty flat again.

A new flat. John didn't know how he felt about it, but he did know that he would be content to never step foot on the steps of 221B for as long as he lived. He also knew, secretly, that he would never be able to accept death gracefully until he re-entered that flat once more. Both his and Sherlock's things were still there, serving as caricatures and statues of a time in his life that he wanted to both obliterate and preserve at the same time.

It was a lot of that, these days - never knowing what was sacred and what was truthless, what was befitting of annihilation and what was deserving of a second chance. His thoughts generally stayed at both ends of a spectrum of extremes - a pendulum that swung back and forth between festering bitterness and centrifugal heartbreak, speeding in the middle so that he would never know a head and heart without radicals.

There was no middle-ground anymore.

Regardless, it would be a while before he would go back. Years, if that's what it took. He would have to wait until the atmosphere didn't drip with particles of Sherlock Holmes anymore. If he did go back, he would run his fingers across the ridiculous trinkets that contained the binary codes of who Sherlock was and what he loved - or liked, depending on who you asked. He would take a few minutes and consider his time spent with Sherlock and reflect on what he gained (everything) and what he lost (more than everything)

And then he would cry. And that would be the end of the end of the end, amen.

For now, however, he would only throw gasoline on every thing that Sherlock ever loved, and set fire to it all. And that would be one of the biggest mistakes.

"If you do not respond within the next hour, I'm afraid I will have no choice but to send Anthea to the flat and make a scene. I know how you love drama, John. -MH"

"I dont live at 221b anymore Mycroft -JW"

"Obviously. -MH"

A surge of irritation shot through John at the word Sherlock had condescended him with at least once a day. It was hard enough engaging with other people without Mycroft hitting close to home by utilizing the art of Holmes-ian mannerisms and nuances.

"Is this about Sherlocks things? I told you to take them. -JW"

"No, this is about another matter entirely, one of utmost importance. What time should I send Anthea?-MH"

"Is it about Sherlock? -JW"

"Yes, a matter of which you are intrinsically involved. I do apologize, John, but this particular issue will not conveniently disappear. -MH"

"Will you leave me alone if I agree to this? -JW"

"I can't make any promises, but I will certainly try my hardest. -MH"

"Do what you want. i'll be here. -JW"

"Thank you, John. Sincerely. Be ready by tonight. -MH"

And then John launched the phone, splintering the plastic into shrapnel as it hit the wall with a _smack_. It clattered to the floor gracelessly, and John sat down and leaned his head back against the opposing wall and closed his eyes.

"How am I supposed to let this go when you are literally _everywhere_, Sherlock? Why do I have to-" He said to no one, and yet any one- any one who would listen to the crises' that slump against their walls and struggle to make sense of a stupidly senseless life.

Glancing at the fragments of phone across the floor, John leaned forward and snatched a particularly lethal-looking piece. It glinted, and he found himself running it lightly across his knuckles and over the pads of his fingers.

"You were always on the verge of self-destruction. A stretch of time too long, or a lack of adrenaline, stimulation, and you would shoot cocaine like water. Is this how it felt? To not have it?" John asked as he pressed the plastic into his flesh, not bothering to wince as the blood beaded and streamed, because this pain was unbelievably trite when compared with the others.

"I said I would never allow it, Sherlock, but if I had known that this is what it felt like, I would have let you. Christ, I would have let you have it, Sherlock. No one should have to live with this- this kind of-" John whispered desperately as he guided the plastic vertically down his arm, ignoring the popping and ripping sounds as his fingers shook with the pressure.

_"This lack of purpose."_

Small streams of blood ran in sloppy, un-beautiful trails down the sides of his arm, and he tore the plastic out of his skin when it met the crease in his arm. It speckled a few crimson spatters as he tossed it on the floor, but John felt the adrenaline he so craved coursing at the prospect of this pain - this hazardous foul-play, romantically self-destructive and ill-advised. He had learned early on that pain, in whatever setting, was always an indication that something was indisputably wrong.

And things were so, so wrong. In every way, at every hour of every day.

With a careful dexterity, John carefully placed the palm of his hand at the bottom of his arm and swept upward, smearing the pulsing blood across his arm and hand where it collected in the fine, venous lines of his skin. He swiped his bloodied hand half-heartedly against the floor, watching in fascination as new trails beaded and replaced the old trails - and everything was so malevolently red; red like the Semtex, red like the panic, red like Sherlock's anger- red like the dotted sniper lasers and red like the adrenaline that caught in his throat when he and Sherlock barreled down an alley-way, not knowing if they would live to see any other color but red.

And then it looked red like the blood that poured over Sherlock's ice-blue irises when he hit the concrete, and John felt his stomach roll at the prospect of what he had become, and where he would go from here.

...he knew from a Medical standpoint that self-harm was the first step into a very bad, very final place to be. He also knew, sickeningly, that that shadowed place was really the only place that he could see himself tolerating anymore. Sherlock was there. And that was...

...that was good.

**(Three Hours Later)**

"John Watson?" Came a muffled feminine voice from outside the door, and John shot upwards as a sequence of knocks followed shortly after.

"Coming." He croaked, blinking furiously to get rid of the sleep that riddled his vision. The clock struck eleven just as he shot upwards and began to pace around the room. Grabbing his jumper, he slid it over himself and hissed in pain as it scraped over the angry incision on his left arm. Glancing backwards, he acknowledged the dry, patchy hand-prints of blood on the floor and quickly kicked the fractured phone pieces under a dresser.

Swiping his keys off the table, he opened the door to find the beautiful and ever-striking Anthea with her face buried in her phone.

"I tried to call, but I was sent straight to voice-mail." She replied a little suspiciously, and a lot boredly.

"Er, yeah, I dropped the phone in the tub. Have to get a new one." John explained, not willing to acknowledge her slightly raised brow as she told John, in subtle ways, how unrealistic that explanation actually was.

"Right. The car is outside." She replied, turning and walking towards the stairs in her fabulously catty heels. John cast on more glance back towards the wall and turned the light off.

"Mycroft is not happy about the phone." She commented emotionlessly as her fingers sped over the keypad.

"It was an accident. Tell him to fuck off." John replied as he slid into the car and shut the door. He turned to fasten the seat-belt when he was met with a glossy phone held in front of his face.

"You tell him. He wishes to communicate with you via this phone." She explained. Sighing, John took the phone and began typing.

"I dropped it in the tub, dont give yourself a hernia. Im on my way. Oh and fuck off. -JW" John typed as the lights of London nightlife sped past the window. He glanced at an unimpressed Anthea and waited for a response from the insatiable Mycroft, assuring himself that this would hopefully be the last conversation he would ever have to hold with Mycroft Holmes.

He glanced at the phone two minutes later when it buzzed on his leg.

"When you arrive, Anthea will escort you to the second floor. She will return to the main floor, and you will proceed into the fourth door at your right. -MH" John read, wondering how serious of a conversation this would be when Mycroft failed to rise to his instigation.

But then again, things weren't how they used to be.

"Fine. Make this quick. -JW" He typed back, and hoped that Mycroft would understand the silent plea in that statement and bestow his mercies accordingly. Even though Mycroft and Sherlock were infinities different from each other, they still spoke and moved with the same condescending elegance and omniscient splendor. They still radiated innuendos of each other, and John didn't want to see it anymore.

Couldn't.

Thirty minutes passed and John found himself numbly walking the steps of Mycroft's home, carefully avoiding the one picture of Sherlock he kept on the wall. He began to feel sick and willed the rolling of his stomach to stand down for just a few more minutes, and then it would be okay. He would never have to stand face-to-face with Sherlock's blood again.

"This is as far as I go." Anthea commented as she and John stood on the top step. "Fourth door to your right, you'll find him in there."

"Thanks Anthea." John commented, taking a deep breath and striding forward. Large family photos plastered the wall, and John found himself surprised at how sentimental Mycroft was apparently willing to allow himself to appear. He briefly caught sight of an older photograph of a raven-haired, blue-eyed boy, and distinctively barreled forward.

_"It's all fine." _The eight-month-old phantom whispered again.

Approaching the fourth door, John knocked firmly.

"Come in." Came Mycroft's voice, and John strode through.

_"It's all fine."_

"This better be serious, Mycro-" John started to say, but was rendered utterly speechless as his eyes fell to the tall figure who stood next to Mycroft and peered at him with the most devastatingly blue irises John had ever seen.

"John, please sit down." Mycroft spoke extremely carefully, pulling a chair out. "I told you this was important." And Mycroft was so, so pale that John knew this wasn't a joke, and if it was it was in **_terrible_** taste.

_"It's all fine."_

The not-Sherlock figure could only stare at him in what John would describe as "abject horror", but John was suddenly finding it difficult to trust a single fucking thought that he created in that moment. He felt the back of his knee hit the door and realized he must have taken a few steps backwards as Mycroft and the Not-Sherlock stepped in tandem towards him.

"No." John commented. "No. This isn't- this isn't-" He tried, but he felt his knees shaking as the room warped into stupid shapes and colors.

"John." Mycroft spoke as he stepped forward, assertive, though not before John held his hand weakly in front of him. "We can explain, John. Just-"

"No. Don't. Don't do this to me. Not now. Not after, just don't-" He whispered, and he knew the tears were welling as every lamp in the orange-lit room seemed to burst with the power of solar flares.

"John." The Not-Sherlock said, and John felt his spine run rigid at the perfectly-matched baritone of that voice, and the next thing John saw was the sleeve of Mycroft's suit and the bottom of Not-Sherlock's black coat in front of his eyes as he rolled forward.

_"It's all fine."_


	2. Chapter 2

"Put him in the chair. Careful now-"

John heard, though muffled, as the black veil that had encompassed his vision gave way to reveal warped shapes and sounds whirling through the room. He blinked methodically to rid his vision of the neon spots bursting and popping in front of his face as a shoulder slid out from underneath his arm pit. Grunting, he felt a hand plant itself firmly on his chest and push him into the back of a ridiculous velvet chair.

"-absolutely not, don't be absurd. He's regaining consciousness anyway. John - John, are you alright?" Came the inquiry as a hand grasped his shoulder and shook it lightly. "Certainly not like you to faint."

"_Mycroft._"John acknowledged internally, though why he was in the presence of Mycroft Holmes was completely outside the realm of his current understanding.

"Are you feeling nauseous, John?" Mycroft asked as the timbre of his voice hit John like a can of nails. "Get the water, Sherlock."

_Sherlock? _Why would he even_ play_...?

And like the launching of a snow globe into a cement wall, John felt the realization burst and shatter into a thousand shards of glass, all piercing through him at break-neck speeds. Eyes flashing open, he keeled forward from the chair and spun around, eyes landing dizzily on the glossy, Gothic curls and sinister black wool of a figure standing behind the chair.

Sherlock. In all his alabaster, shadowed glory.

"No." John said again; though this time it was deplete of any kind of vulnerability, and dangerously full of a new kind of red-light fury. "No, no- I won't fucking believe this! Mycroft, what the _hell_-"

"John-" Mycroft began, but was abruptly cut off mid-sentence.

"It was all a trick, John. It was deception - a con, a sham, whatever you want to call it, but before you decide anything, you must know that it was all absolutely _necessary_." Came the cool baritone of Sherlock's voice, and John felt his face would suffer third-degree burns from the titanium-burn of Sherlock's scrutiny. John glanced at Mycroft, only to find his head held high in resolution and his lips thinned in self-defense as John realized that Mycroft had known about whatever "this" sick charade was the entire time.

Eight whole months, and Mycroft Holmes watched from a distance as he fell apart in every way possible - watched him as he struggled to get out of bed and find new reasons to breathe while simultaneously fighting the urge not to succumb to every psychosomatic ailment on the planet. Eight months of crumbling, rebuilding, crumbling all over again- a hundred misplaced emotions a day, followed by the terrifying nightly process of second-guessing _**everything **_that he and Sherlock had built during that perfect and maddening time they spent together.

Who had known? Who the _fuck_ else had known?

And then John pressed the heel of his hand to his eye, hissed in anger, and turned to make his way out the door.

"John, I can assure you that what Sherlock said is tr-"

_"Sherlock!_" John bellowed, turning around to face him with an accusing pointer finger. "...is dead. He died eight months ago, so I don't know who that is, but _that_ is not Sherlock." He barked, half-heartedly waving at Sherlock as the detective remained frozen. "Do not speak to me about Sherlock Holmes again." John seethed, reaching for the door handle as Sherlock abruptly strode forward, slammed the door shut from behind and planted himself directly in front of John.

"John." Sherlock spoke, verging on irritation, capturing John's gaze in an iron hold. His eyes were tired and shadowed with the trials of survival, but John couldn't find it within himself to tear his eyes away from the ever-living, breathing color of Sherlock's irises. John knew Sherlock could crawl half-dead through all nine circles of _hell_ and that eye color would still flare with the particles of a solar, crystallized life-force.

It was wrong. So critically wrong to the very core and John was well beyond the fury.

They had been here before. They had done this before, this same dance - once upon a time in the beginning; a drugs bust in the flat, when John had first discovered Sherlock's manic flirtation with cocaine (and God knew what else.) Lestrade was there -Donovan and Anderson as well, and Sherlock had visually plead with John to _shut up _about the drugs, because John didn't yet know Sherlock to be the shades of dark that he really was.

But that was millenniums and ago. That was before-

But the silver-mint nebula of Sherlock's irises along with the clenching topography of his jaw and the Cupid's bow on his Bottacelli mouth was indescribably accurate and striking and so stupidly _physical_ in front of his face - Sherlock. Always, _always_ crowding every available inch of space that John could possibly call his own. He used to accept it- maybe encouraged it, and _might_ have even loved it in the most secret of ways. But not now, not after the damage.

"I can't accept this." John ground through clenched teeth, and Sherlock's eyes flashed with the radiation of a super nova. "I won't."

"You see but you do not observe, and you _have_ to observe, John." Sherlock spoke, willing John to understand and believe and _deduce_. But John didn't want to deduce, he had made his peace with deductions. Shifting his midnight orbs away from the magnetic authority of Sherlock's scrutiny, John reached behind himself and grappled shakily for the door handle.

John stepped back, shaking his head as Sherlock slowly removed his hand from the door and tracked John's movements with a predatory, feline watch.

"Fuck you." Whispered John, eyes welling red as he reached for the door handle. "Fuck you, Sherlock."

"John, don't-" Mycroft drawled, but the harsh click of a door lock accented the sub-arctic silence, and Mycroft frowned as Sherlock flexed his hand, lit a cigarette, and fell glacially quiet. A painful minute of suspension passed before Sherlock visibly drew within himself again, statuesque and collected against the play-like theatrics of a morbidly-impossible resurrection.

"Surely you can see now that I wasn't exaggerating." Mycroft commented lowly, grimacing as Sherlock's response came in the form of a heavy, wounded exhalation of smoke into the small office. Sitting down at his mahogany desk, Mycroft began exhaustively flipping through several stacks of legal documents."He needs time, Sherlock."

"John will need more than _time_." Sherlock spat sarcastically, mouth molding around the cigarette. "He'll need _sentiment. _A hand-written apology or a ridiculous declaration of love, and even _then_ it won't be enou-"

"I don't think you understand the depth of his grief, Sherlock." Mycroft interrupted, snapping a folder onto the desk for impact as an unapologetic silence pierced the room. "I know it was difficult for you, but you can't understand the pain of loss in the way that he-" He began, though flinching sharply as Sherlock slammed his palm on the desk and rounded on him.

"HE wasn't the only one who-" Sherlock barked, but aborted his sentence as Mycroft met him with a fierce and highly-unimpressed expression.

"John may have been countries out of your reach, Sherlock, but he was still accessible to you. For all intents and purposes, you were in a place that John could never reach. You don't have to agree, but at _least_ be realistic about that kind of finality."

"I won't apologize." Sherlock commented with a fiery resolution. "If he expects me to confess to any kind of guilt for what I did, I'm afraid he will be _sorely_ disappointed."

"No one expects you to apologize, Sherlock, but you shouldn't be so aggressive." Mycroft commented as he ran a pen across the paper he was reading. "John's grief is something that you will not -no, _cannot_ know with deductions or data and experiments. I suggest you accept that gracefully before you say the wrong thing. Give him _time_." Mycroft emphasized the last word, an indication to Sherlock that he was entirely done speaking about this.

"What am I supposed to do until then?" Sherlock asked, eyes narrowing in agitation as he blew another round of smoke into the air.

"You wait. Just as he has."

Taking the stairs two at a time, John barreled down to the first floor and through the living room, cursing quietly to himself all the way.

"Dr. Watson?" Came the voice of Anthea, her head snapping up from the Blackberry as he whirled past her and slammed the front door with enough force to rattle the windows. Fumbling through his pockets, he tore Mycroft's borrowed phone out and began dialing clumsily as his breath came in short, white puffs of fog in the air.

_"John?_" Came the muffled voice of Lestrade after the fifth ring. _"What the hell-"_

"How long have you known?" He demanded breathlessly, and it was all he could do to refrain from littering his sentences with a few screaming curse words.

_"Come again?"_

"About Sherlock. How long have you known?"

And then the other end of the line was filled with a white static hiatus, and John laughed bitterly to himself. "That long, huh? Jesus _Christ._"

"...where are you, John?"

"Doesn't matter. All that _bloody_ matters is why you didn't tell me Sherlock was alive, and there better be an amazing fucking explanation for this one, Greg."

"Trust me, mate, there is. You don't even-" He stopped then, and John found himself slowing in pace to wait for the ending. "Why don't we go out for a drink? This'll be long, John, and you'll need time with this one. This isn't...it's not easy."

John heard the hesitancy in his voice and berated his heart rate to slacken to a non-fatal pulse. It might have been the arctic night air, but John felt his anger steaming out through his pores, making room for the most overwhelming and all-consuming flood of relief that John had ever had the privilege of despising. He would think on it later, but for now all that he could possibly hear over the ringing in his ears was the panicked prayer of: _"Sherlock was alive. Sherlock is alive. Sherlock. Is. Alive."_

Glancing at his watch, John winced around the headlights of a car passing by and crossed the street.

"It's late, Greg."

"I know, but I don't imagine you'll be getting a lot of sleep tonight. Don't imagine I will be either, to be honest, now that that bastard's come back."

"Come back?" John huffed breathlessly, halting the current topic of conversation onto a new trail; which was utterly pointless considering the thousands of trails that he wanted - no, _needed_ to explore as soon as humanly possible.

"I'll explain later. How soon can you meet?"

"Don't know, I just left Mycroft's. I'm walking home. Don't ask."

"Wouldn't dream of it. I'll send a car, just stay where you are."

"I don't know where I am." John replied, not acknowledging the double meaning in that statement.

"I'll find you."


	3. Chapter 3

_"Turn around and walk back the way you came."_

He shouldn't have. He really shouldn't have, but he did. Should have kept going, should have run up to the roof-top and completely _disregarded _something that Sherlock had asked, for once, instead of remaining pliant to every order. Maybe then he would have seen the "magic" behind how he did it all - the trick. He should have run into the building and exposed it all before things had a chance to be entirely destroyed.

_"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop."_

"Yes, you were. And it was so unfair to do that, Sherlock, to stand before me like that. _Jesus_, you were such a-"

It had truly been one of the most horrifying experiences that he had ever had to endure - the whole scenario teetering like a board on a ball with the outcome entirely dependent on what John would say or do. The fragility was maddening, and he had to negotiate with Sherlock to sway him from whatever choice he had made, and that had _never_ worked. Sherlock was a wild-card. He was the definition of reckless abandon, and he might have valued John, but he had never listened. It had seemed so critical that John say precisely the right thing, the right confessions, and he...didn't, because Sherlock jumped and painted himself with red and it was morbidly wrong.

That was the first time John Watson felt utterly powerless in every way possible.

_"Everything they said about me...I invented Moriarty."_

"Except not really, because you're still-" He snapped his mouth shut, because repetition wouldn't change anything.

He still can't say it, or admit it, or...whatever- not even two weeks after the "great fucking reveal" as he'd come to call it. Sherlock had appeared before him in shadows and smokescreen like he had in the new nightmares - the nightmares that replaced the Afghan desert with a black-blood concrete, and John couldn't recognize Sherlock's face without the blood pooling at at his curls and striking over his eyes and nose.

_"This phone call, um...it's my note. That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note."_

And the anxiety surged through his gut, because that was the moment when he realized what was going on -when Sherlock told him in subtle ways that his reputation was worth more than his life. That single, haunted line had been the prologue of every night for the past eight months. Like this night, as he lies in bed and struggles to balance a malevolent fury with an all-consuming relief.

In the most bizarre of ways, words could never explain how happy John was to be furious aboutit.

John sighed audibly as a buzzing noise abruptly pierced the silence and cast a blue glow through the black room. Reaching for his phone, he held it up and winced around the light of another of Sherlock's 11:00 P.M. text messages.

_"At some point, we will have to address this. I know you struggle to be objective, but this is irrational even for you. I deserve the chance to explain. -SH"_

Yeah, fuck you.

_"You deserve much much more than that. -JW"_ John typed angrily, thumb hovering over the "Send" button as he considered if this was really what he wanted to say. Or _do_, really, considering he wasn't sure he wanted to open a gateway of communication between he and Sherlock at all. Licking his lips, John sighed and sent the text message, head falling back against the headboard of the bed as he tossed the phone in his lap.

He and Sherlock had started exchanging short, tense text messages one week. One week after the disaster in Mycroft's office, and six days after he met with Lestrade and demanded an explanation that Lestrade wasn't entitled or willing to give.

That was the frustrating part of it all.

According to Lestrade, Mycroft had put him under aggressively strict orders to remain silent about Sherlock's "death" with the promise of serious and irreversible consequences if any one were to reveal anything to John. But really, John didn't care about the "how's" or the "when's" or the "where's"; all that mattered to him was _why_. _Why_ Sherlock had done this, and _why_ he was kept in the dark about it. Lestrade wouldn't tell him why, opting instead to imply to John that he needed to ask Sherlock himself, and John knew that Lestrade wasn't following orders from Mycroft with that one.

He just wanted John to talk to Sherlock; and until he did, John would never know. It was an impasse, or a lose-lose situation - a barrier especially created around John with Sherlock controlling the strings from a distance. It was just the way he liked it and had always kept their relationship.

And with another harsh "BZZZZZZZZZZ" accenting the silence, John grabbed the phone.

_"Perhaps. I'm not going to entertain you by believing that you're indifferent, John. This won't go away no matter how ignorant you stay. You want to know, and I can tell you what you want to know. -SH"_

And with that, John shoved the phone in his pocket and cursed audibly. In one flurry of movement, he tore the sheets off of his legs and sprang out of bed, ignoring his coat on the back of his chair as he walked out of the room. His phone buzzed again as he made his way to the front door, but he ignored it when he read the words "Mycroft Holmes" on the screen. With the jingle of his keys, John locked the door to his flat and stepped into the cold atmosphere of London, trying anything to freeze his mind of the acidic confliction.

His thoughts had been so contradictory; all bouncing off of each other and sparking embers over his brain and perspective. Everything was colliding - blind fury grinding against devastating relief, feelings of deeply-rooted betrayal butting heads with feelings of poorly-justified forgiveness, and a defensive desire to hold an indifferent facade against a desire to know _everything_, and know it _now._

Walking through the still-born streets, John's breath came in short puffs of fog as his phone buzzed again in his pocket. Slowing his pace, he grappled through and read the messages. One previous text from Mycroft, and one new text from Sherlock.

_"New case. Could be dangerous.-SH"_

Piss off.

_"John, I understand you're angry, but I really must ask that you overlook that anger for one night. I'm afraid Sherlock has found himself another case to pass the time, though I'm not entirely sure it's harmless. Please contact me. -MH"_

And John felt both the pulse of adrenaline and fear as he made the connection between the two messages.

When given too much time and boredom, Sherlock had a tendency to become dangerously self-destructive. Every one knew this, it hovered like an ill-omened thunder-storm in everyone's peripheral. But John not only knew Sherlock's neuroticy, he _lived_ it.

Sherlock was frustrated, that much John could tell from the tone of his texts. He knew that tone, had memorized it through the turbulent waters of Sherlock's black moods and "Danger Nights." A frustrated Sherlock was usually desperate to find ways to satiate himself, and there was no consideration to his life or well-being in the process of finding that satisfaction. Nothing was off-limits, and Mycroft had only ever contacted John about it when Sherlock had truly pushed the limit to the point of shattering.

Contrary to Sherlock's attitude, Mycroft loved Sherlock more than he would ever willingly admit.

_"He's not with you? -JW" _John typed, pausing in the middle of the street.

_"I haven't seen him in five days. He's using an alternate phone. Call me. -MH"_

Against his better judgment, John began typing the first few digits of Mycroft's number, but paused when the next step was establishing a connection with Mycroft - a connection that implied to Mycroft that he still cared far too much about Sherlock.

His thoughts were interrupted, however, as his phone's ringtone blared and vibrated in his hand.

Lestrade.

"John?" Came the inquiry.

"Greg." John affirmed, voice devoid of any kind of approval.

"There isn't any time to explain, so just listen."

"...Alright." John replied, a disting feeling uneasiness paralyzing his anger.

"You know Sherlock, I don't have to explain to you how he...gets." Lestrade explained apologetically, and John felt himself nod. "He's been under tight surveillance as of late. Necessary, of course, but you know it means nothing to him. He's been frustrated as well, never a healthy combination for him."

"Is he in danger?" John asked, interrupting the flow.

"I'm not sure." Lestrade replied, hesitancy clear through the phone. "He's been taken with a string of murders that happened on the left side of town two days ago. It's all suspected to be illegal drug trade. Cartel, drug lords - the whole nasty business. I told him to leave it alone but I doubt he's listened, and he's ten steps ahead of the Yard on this one."

"What do you want me to do?" John asked around the lump in his throat.

"Has he been speaking to you?"

"Occasionally."

"You need to find out where he is, mate. Mycroft Holmes can't find him and he won't respond to me. This is a dangerous business, John. Drug Lords aren't independent, they have networks and systems of people. I know things aren't...all that great right now, but this is too big for Sherlock."

"He has a phone. Can you trace the call?" John asked, voice slightly softening.

"Already tried, but the phone is one of many phones he had customized while in the States and Russia. There's no telling what he's done to it, but we can't capture a signal."

"Okay. Alright, I'll be in contact." John replied, storing his curiosity about the States and Russia for later.

"Listen, John. If you find out where he is, _don't_ go after him. Whatever he tells you, let me know as soon as possible and I'll dispatch a team to intercept."

"Alright." Came John's reply as he hung up and turned back the way he came.

_"Where are you? -JW" _He typed quickly, fingers fumbling as he sent the message to Sherlock.

When ten minutes passed, John cursed audibly.

When twenty minutes passed yielding nothing, he composed another message.

_"Let me know where you are. I'll talk. -JW"_

When thirty minutes passed without a response, John decided to do something he knew Sherlock had always hated.

He called.

Dialing the number, John waited out the rings and listened to his heart beat pounding in his ears, drumming in tandem with the hope that Sherlock would just answer the fucking phone. When it sent him to voicemail, he tried again.

After the fourth time, John left a voicemail.

"I don't know where you are, but I...I need to know, Sherlock. I'll talk to you if you tell me where you are. It's-" He stopped then, and the white-space tempted him to continue. "It's important. I'll talk about anything, just...just call me when you get this. Please."

"Damn it." John cursed, looking around for a place to possibly hail a cab if it got to that point. Getting to the left side of town would be quite a drive, but the prospect of sleep had gone to hell the second Sherlock had failed to answer his texts for the first time in the history of their entire camaraderie.

Bearing down into the wind, John's adrenaline surged when his phone buzzed again ten minutes later revealing Sherlock's number across the screen.

"118kingsleyst -SH" Came the message, and John knew immediately that something was wrong when he caught the absence of the capital letters and spaces. As ridiculous as it seemed, Sherlock was painfully pedantic and would never speak or write in a language that was anything short of flawless. The text messages had always been explicitly accurate with the English language, which was just another testament to the "All Things Elegant" philosophy of Sherlock's world.

Which meant this was a bit not good. Bad, actually, and John's senses ignited in a way they hadn't in eight months.

Hailing a late-night cab, John threw himself in the car and blurted the address to the driver who only sent a look of concern at the urgency in John's voice.

"Would you mind going a little faster?" John asked impatiently, looking around his shoulder out of habit as he glanced at his phone for the fourteenth time. "It's an emergency."

(Later)

"Here is fine." John commented quickly as he chucked the fare sloppily at the cab, slammed the door and ran briskly down the (clearly) seedy homes. The driver sent him a disbelieving look before shifting into gear and driving off.

"Shit." John commented as he pulled out his phone. Typing Lestrade's number, John sent the address to him and turned a corner to locate the building that Sherlock had sent. When the location came into view, John stopped from a distance and observed the metal "118" plaque that was nailed to the door of a large, decrepit home.

The area was sickeningly quiet, and there wasn't a soul in sight - a neighborhood left for nothing but steady decay.

It was an ideal location for illegal drug trade.

In controlled fear, John made his way to the back yard by entering at a sixty-foot radius around the house. Moving along the sides, John stopped at the first window he came to and peered in, but hissed in frustration at the presence of a black tarp covering the window from the inside.

And then the phone buzzed, and John tore it out of his coat.

_"Please tell me you didn't go. -GL"_ Came the text, and John turned the phone off and shoved it back into his pocket.

With his back planted firmly against the wall of the house, John stopped to calculate the details of his next move. It was only a single-story house, so there was no need to consider the possibility of Sherlock on any additional floor or basement. But glancing down the length of the house, John noted the presence of black tarp taped over the inside of every window, so visibility was set at a firm 0%.

"Dammit." John whispered, adjusting his weight to the other side of his leg. Craning his neck to other end of the house, John caught sight of a window three down from him that had a hole shattered in the left corner. Crouching, he walked lowly and quietly through the grass, stopping in front of the window.

It was then that he heard the tiny sounds of a few small, muffled voices coming from the inside. Pressing his ear to the hole in the window, John could make out the sound of a single individual speaking.

"-impressed, really I am. The great "Sherlock Holmes", back from the fucking dead. Your older brother is the British government, right? I'm sure I would receive a beautiful ransom in exchange for your _sneaky_ little life."

John waited on halted breath for that deep baritone to respond. His hand rested unconsciously over his gun, debating how and when he should-

"But still, you've made quite a name for yourself in the criminal underworld; and not a respected name, I'm afraid. I know three dozen people who would pay large sums to see your blood spattered against that wall."

"Don't waste your time with threats, Kinlan. It rarely works on me." Sherlock replied, and John found himself struggling not to scream at Sherlock for his _serious_ disregard to his own life.

"I don't do threats, Sherlock Holmes." Came the reply, and John flinched as the sickening sound of metal on bone filled the room. "I do _that_."

John heard an impish hiss escape from Sherlock, indicating that he had been hit several times. It was then that a gust of wind picked up, lifting the black tarp through the hole momentarily - just long enough for John to see stacks of unmarked boxes through the house, and Sherlock with his wrists tied and sitting in a chair. Blood ran in small trails down the side of his face from a blunt abrasion on his forehead, and his head was bent to one side with curls plastered to his neck.

And then John's fear was replaced with a throb of anger.

With his face leaning closer to the window, John carefully blew against the tarp through the hole and watched Sherlock lift his head wearily.

"I will kill you, you know. Quite literally. There will be no 'coming back' this time." Came the response of the Lord, and John watched as he moved the barrel of his gun softly around Sherlock's face and down his neck. The gun ran in caressing trails over Sherlock's collarbone as Sherlock looked straight into Kinlan's eyes with _that_ look, and John found himself shaking his head.

_"Don't do it, Sherlock." _He thought. _"Don't even think about i-"_

Sherlock huffed in frustration.

"Must you be so _boring_?" He asked boredly, and then the barrel of Kinlan's gun was shoved open-mouthed against the curls of Sherlock's forehead, and John didn't know who he wanted to shoot more.

_"Shut the hell up, Sherlock!" _John barked inwardly, and found that he had pulled his own gun out of his pocket.

"3..." Came Kinlan's voice, and then John felt himself explode into fire as the click of Kinlan's gun echoed through the room. Without a second thought, John positioned his own gun in the hole of the window and concentrated desperately on perfecting the angle. It would be difficult, but if he could just-

"2..."

Steadying himself, he closed one eye, held his breath and concentrated - just like Afghanistan, just like the first day he met Sherlock.

Just like breathing.

And before Kinlan could even consider placing his finger over the trigger, John shot him through the window, zero visibility, and ducked as glass shards exploded over his clothes and hair.

And like the breaking of the sound barrier, John slammed the heel of his gun against the remaining glass in the window, not bothering to wince as the glass tore etchy cuts through his arms. He thanked the gods for once that he was small in stature, because he slid through the now-shattered window and bolted forward.

Sighing in utter relief, John made eye-contact with a badly-bruised but alive Sherlock who observed John in some kind of shocked fascination.

"John." He whispered, and John swore it could have been a prayer if Sherlock had a religious bone in his body. "John, you-"

"I know." John replied, bolting around Sherlock and severing the wire that tied his wrists together with a large shard of glass. Kinlan's body was face-down and pooling blood, but John stepped over him and crouched in front of Sherlock to cut the wire binding his ankle.

"Sherlock, why the _hell_ did you provoke hi-" But before he could finish, a painfully loud crack sounded through the room as the window one down from where John had entered exploded in a flurry of glass. Both he and Sherlock hit the floor as a string of bullets ricocheted off the walls sending shrapnel flying through the air.

"The hit-man." Sherlock called over the gun shots, and John searched desperately for a door.

And then he was yanked upwards as Sherlock grasped his wrist, and propelled them towards the front door. Glancing backwards, John caught a glimpse of an elbow breaking the remaining glass of the window, and the titanium-glint of his gun resting in a pool of Kinlan's blood.

Stopping abruptly, John yanked out of Sherlocks grasp and ran back to the living room, only to have Sherlock cast him a look of utterly disbelieving fury.

"The gun!" John yelled back at him, swiping the gun off the floor as Sherlock yanked him back and pulled him through the living room. And like the breaking of a dam, Sherlock shoved the front door open, and they were running break-neck through the yard and down the street.

"Lestrade!" Sherlock yelled back to him.

"Already texted him! He should be here in a few-" And then a bullet hit the side of a house directly in front of Sherlock, halting him abruptly as John slammed into his back. On impact, the gun flew out of John's hand and skid across the sidewalk, spinning to a stop about ten feet in front of them. Lurching forward, John made his way to grab the gun again but was jerked backwards.

"John!" Sherlock barked angrily, pupils shrinking, and suddenly John felt the completely inappropriate desire -no, _need_- to ignore him, to refrain from bending to his will, because the gun was the only thing that would bring them out of this alive. John had learned in the most painful way that he couldn't protect Sherlock on his own - not at St. Bart's while on the ground and looking upwards with nothing to use but his useless words. On the rooftop, Sherlock had commanded him to do something and he had fucking _listened,_ and Sherlock had ended up "dead" because of it.

...which is why John peeled out of Sherlock's grasp again and swiped the gun off of the concrete, ducking as another bullet shot directly over his head and into the house. John tracked the bullet's direction and cursed as his eyes landed on a stocky man running towards them with one gun in his hand, and one in a holster.

"Sherlock!" John yelled half on instinct and half on adrenaline.

In one spinning movement, Sherlock grasped his wrist and they were running again, this time between the alley of two individual houses. A shot ricocheted off of the concrete at John's feet, igniting a small burst of sparks. Sherlock glanced backwards with eyes wide and icey as a bullet whizzed past the side of his face. The hitman must have been outrageously fast, because the sound of pounding footsteps caught up with them and John made a split-secoond decision.

With one careful movement, John craned his arm backwards, calculated and pin-pointed at a ridiculously sloppy angle, and muttered a quick prayer as he shot blindly behind him.

Breath catching in his throat, John caught sight of the man crumpling to the ground.

And then Sherlock jerked him to the side of the house where they both landed with backs against the wall.

"He's dead." John explained breathlessly as he glanced back at the hitman, heart beating wildly in his chest. His gun clattered to the ground at his feet as the blood on it's heel stained wet and red across his fingers. "We're fine."

"We're fine." Sherlock repeated, voice deep and chest heaving as he struggled to gather his own breath.

"We're..." John began as his eyes landed on Sherlock's, and the detective could only mirror his own gaze. "We're fine." John affirmed, a smile breaking through the manic adrenaline.

"Yes, John."

And suddenly, in the most inappropriate of times and ways, he and Sherlock were both shaking with laughter. A minute or a year passed -John wasn't sure- as the sound of childish giggling dotted the otherwise intense atmosphere. Small tears formed in the corners of John eyes as he clenched his stomach and allowed himself to collapse against the wall, Sherlock's baritone laughter accentuated under his own.

"Jesus Christ, we're alive." John muttered in disbelief, and looked up to find Sherlock peering down at him with a bizarre, less-amused expression.

"John...why-"

But before he could finish, the shrill sound of police sirens pierced the air, and John stood up and brushed himself off.

"Lestrade." He commented, and whatever Sherlock had been planning to say was underscored as he walked back through the alley and into the street. John followed after and caught sight of the siren lights blinking rapidly in front of 118 Kingsley. Sherlock was already fifteen steps ahead, and John found himself slowing as the realization hit him like ice-water.

He was following again.

He had followed, and he had loved every second of it.

"Coming?" Came a voice, and John glanced upwards to find Sherlock staring blankly back at him. Glancing to the side, John sighed audibly and squinted around the now-rising sun. Opening his mouth, he allowed it to snap shut when he realized that what he wanted to say wasn't what he wanted to say, because it would take a sodding _year_ to say it all. And at some point, John _would_ say it all, and it was going to be fire and brimstone and warfare when he did.

"Okay, Sherlock." He commented, and Sherlock's mouth turned up in a crooked smirk.

"Good." He remarked as he moved forward, fingers moving swiftly over his phone, and John stopped.

"I'm angry, Sherlock." He called from behind, and Sherlock slowed gracefully to a stop. "And I will be. For a very, _very_ long time. I'm not-"

_"I'm not-"_

"Jesus _Christ_, you two!" Lestrade barked as he slammed the car door and jogged forward, stopping in front of them. Both Sherlock and John turned towards him. "Can't _bloody _listen, either of you! I should arrest you both for failure to comply with the law."

"Don't make threats, Lestrade. You're not good at it." Sherlock commented boredly as he typed into his phone, most likely responding to Mycroft's distressed inquiries. "I solved the case, and John killed one of London's most aggressive drug lords. You're welcome." He replied smoothly as he tucked the phone inside his wool coat and strode off.


End file.
